"Public banks are not here to rescue friends and the former ambassador to the US from politicians who organize meals at Zappeion." It has been a while since we heard SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras rant and rave with statements such as the above against figures such as Evangelos Venizelos, (who heard this when he was the Finance Minister under the George Papandreou government in regards to the Proton Bank scandal). At the time, Tsipras pointed to Lavrentis Lavrentiadis (who today is at the Korydallos prison on charges of the creation and management of an organized criminal organization, money-laundering, fraud and embezzlement) as well as to the former Ambassador and Chairman of the bank Daniel Speckhard (yes the same man who was once the US Ambassador to Athens and who sent a multitude of controversial letters that were against Greece's decision to become an energy hub in southern Europe to Washington as indicated by Wikileaks).Following his trip to the US in 2013, it is believed that 39 year old leader of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, came to the realization that all the scandalous stories that have a more "western" color to them are just that... stories. Conspiracies if you may. This far-leftist politician has made a 180 degree turn and is now only concentrated on one thing and that is how to cultivate his international profile.
According to a multitude of reports, the most interesting highlight of Tsipras' tour to the US in early 2013 was to the American-Hellenic Institute. It was an event that journalists strangely avoided and only subtly mentioned. At the event, some familiar faces of the past suddenly appeared which would have been news in itself, but the Greek press totally ignored it. Specifically, two former US Ambassadors to Greece were present, or specifically, Mr. Daniel Speckhard and Mr. Thomas Miller. They were so excited and enthused about Tsipras' presence that they even took the time to snap a photo with him - who as we can all see from the photo above, was really loving the moment (View top photo).
Who are these two ambassadors, and why all the fuss about the photo?
In order to understand who these two men are, and it is best to start from the beginning.
Former US President George W. Bush appointed Thomas Miller as Ambassador to Greece on August 3, 2001, Miller then assumed the position on October 8, 2001 and held it until December 23, 2004. On the other hand, Daniel Speckhard was appointed as US Ambassador to Greece on November 7, 2007 and arrived in Athens on November 15, 2007, where he served until 2010.
Thomas Miller
Thomas Miller served on the same Board of Directors at Lampsa SA -which owns the Grande Bretagne Hotel in Athens- with other well-known names such as (ta ta ta ta ta) Nikos Papandreou, or the brother of the former President of PASOK, George Papandreou. The Lampsa company is owned by the Laskaridis family.
According to Antinews, Niko joined the Board in July 2003 but he suddenly (and mysteriously) decided to quit in October 2009 when his brother George Papandreou rose to power. A little while later Miller left as well, but their friendship continued.
Today, from what we know, Miller serves as Director of Independent Diplomat (at the Washington, DC office). The latter is a non-profit organization founded in 2004 by former British diplomat Carne Ross. It apparently gives advice and assistance in diplomatic strategy, as well as teaches techniques to governments and political groups. Basically it provides freelance diplomatic assistance to unrecognized governments (i.e. governments of seceded or proto-states that do not -yet- have international recognition, and usually have little -or no- experience in dealing with international bureaucracy). Its projects have included: helping Kosovo achieve recognition as a new state, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, etc., and the Turkish occupied section of Northern Cyprus. Source - Wikipedia
Over the years, Miller often visited the Balkans, especially Albania and his activities there, according to the Greek newspaper Parapolitika, are a complete mystery. Nonetheless, rumors claim that he was very interested in the casino industry (something that Mr. Laskaridis is also active in).
In a separate report on kourdistoportocali, we read that Thomas Miller climbed the ladder of success in Washington, after his immediate boss, Richard Holbrooke, while acting as charge d'affaires at the Embassy in Athens (September 1995 due to the absence of the then Ambassador Thomas Niles), was active in the consultations that led to the signing of the Interim Agreement between Greece and FYROM (13.09.1995).
During the US invasion of Iraq and as ambassador to Athens, we also discovered that Miller intervened by asking the Greek American community to send representations to Athens, in an effort to stop the anti-war and anti-Americanism movements (and/or protests). But after the war, and the dismantling of the notorious November 17 terrorist organization, -as well as the successful Athens 2004 Olympic Games -, he was quoted in interviews as saying that anti-war movements, or protests, were not a manifestation of Antiamericanism.
When Mr. Miller's diplomatic run ended, we also discovered that he undertook projects on behalf of the Turkish occupied area of Cyprus and was apparently involved in the handling the extremely sinful and controversial C4i case. (Security systems)
According to other reports, when Miller served as US Ambassador to Athens, he would open the doors to ministerial offices with ease, and during these meetings he would constantly promote American defence companies such as Lockheed Martin. Other companies that were promoted included Motorola (which makes sense because it is apparently allied with Socrates Kokkalis' Intracom company, someone who is a shady character himself and who is a very good friend of Gianna-Aggelopoulou Daskalaki, who is chummy chummy with the Clintons and as we all know was also a good friend to George Papandreou).
The reports in the Greek press also claim that Miller also became involved with a security system which was not only costly to the Greek state, but wasn't ever completed. This system wasn't even delivered on time to serve as the center of security for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, but idiotic Greek tax payers paid for it anyway.
Finally a fresh article from kourdistoportocali claims that Thomas Miller is also the man who is up to his neck in the wiretapping scandal (against the former Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis). The scandal apparently is linked to the mysterious deathj of the former Network Planning Manager for Vodafone Costas Tsalikidis.
Wait a minute... Who is Tsakalidis? Keep on reading...
"On March 9, Kostas Tsalikidis, was found dead in an apparent suicide. According to several experts questioned by the Greek press, Tsalikidis was a key witness in the investigation of responsibility of the wiretaps. Family and friends believe there are strong indications he was the person who first discovered that highly sophisticated software had been secretly inserted into the Vodafone network. Tsalikidis had been planning for a while to quit his Vodafone job but told his fiancée not long before he died that it had become "a matter of life or death" that he leave, says the family's lawyer, Themis Sofos. There is speculation that either he committed suicide because of his involvement in the tapping of the phones, or he was murdered because he had discovered, or was about to discover, who the perpetrators were. After a four-month investigation of his death, a Supreme Court prosecutor Dimitris Linos said that the death of Tsalikidis was directly linked to the scandal. "If there had not been the phone tapping, there would not have been a suicide," he said." Reference (Greek Watergate Scandal- US Embassy behind phone-tapping of Karamanlis)Daniel Speckhard
According to the report in Parapolitika, following his run as Ambassador to Athens, Daniel Speckhard became the non-executive chairman of the controversial Proton Bank. He served between the period February 1, 2011 until August 19, 2011. He assumed this position at a time when the head of Proton Bank Lavrentis Lavrentiadis was having trouble with his second largest shareholder Mr. Ant. Athanasoglou.
Apart from being a managing partner at WEM Global Investment Inc, Speckhard is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the famous Brookings Institute (for the US and Europe ). Yes... The same institute where Tsipras gave his speech, and where Papandreou also had given his speech before that. Actually reports from in the Greek Diaspora press, as well as in Parapolitika claim that during Tsipras' speech (which was broadcasted live on C-SPAN, the official channel of Capitol Hill), many prominent businessmen attended. The exact same faces also (mysteriously) attended his speech at Columbia University a few days later as well.
Parapolitika notes that Speckhard played a major role in unlocking the doors for Tsipras, especially at the CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), which is considered to be one of the top think tanks in the US.
The aforementioned institution is well known in Greece, since Mr. Lavrentiadis, who apparently funded one of its divisions (or the unit of Southeast European Studies), had organized an event at the Astir Palace in Vouligmenni where characters such as Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski were also present.
Who is Brzezinski? Here is where it gets really interesting. Although the article in "Parapolitka" did not go into details about this man (assuming that the reader already knows what and why) we here at HellasFrappe decided to google his name and we discovered that Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. Sounds harmless enough, but googling his name a little bit more, we also discovered an article on opednews which more or less presents him as being the equivalent of Henry Kissinger. Here is a small portion of the article:
Only three appointed high government officials have run sixty years of war on small vulnerable nations, that were previously plundered under military occupation by colonial powers for centuries? Three spooks, John Foster Dulles (aided by his equally corrupt brother Allen, head of the CIA), Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, chosen by David Rockefeller to oversee the deaths of tens of millions of men, women and children, murdered in their own small beloved countries, as often as not in their own towns, villages and homes - millions more dying in violent aftermaths of US crimes against Congo, Guatemala, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Indonesia, Libya and many other places. (Congo alone accounts for from between six and fifteen million dead since the US led Belgians and other Europeans in destroying it as a nation. In every single case of US mayhem (that's if totaled up reaches many multi-holocaust proportions), civil war, fomented by the US itself, has been used as a pretext for unlawful barbaric criminal intervention by US Armed Forces, most often prepared by a corporate business dutiful CIA using its far flung network of banks, media, double agents and cooperating NGOs. Civil wars! Capitalist empires of Europe had been stimulating them under the axiom "Divide and Conquer' since the first Portuguese armed merchant ships set sail, funded by enterprising investors in the fifteenth century. From the earliest days of investor managed crimes of savage European forces (and later those of the US) falling upon ancient civilizations and cultures, there have been many famous devilishly clever lead investors cleverly creating wars of assured investment profitability. The most infamous in modern history were David's grandfather John Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan. Check the article at OpedNews -Back to our story...
The Unknown Trip to San Fransisco
During his trip to the US, Alexis Tsipras did not formally meet with representatives of the Greek Diaspora, since he chose not to adhere to protocol which calls for a prior meeting with the Archbishop of America. Instead the leader of SYRIZA preferred to meet with other influential personalities in the Greek community which he knew could open future doors for him.
On his first day in the US he chose to make a quick (and hush hush) ten-hour trip to San Francisco, where he met with well known businessman Angelo Tsakopoulos (Phil Angelides, who has served as chairman of the Democratic Party of California and responsible for public property of the state was also present at this meeting). Angelo Tsakopoulos (born 1936) is a prominent real estate developer in Sacramento, California, and the founder/owner of AKT Development.
Tsakopoulos is also apparently one of the main backers of the Democratic party and a proud supporter of Barak Obama. He is also a personal friend of Bill Clinton and Constantine Mitsotakis, and the current Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras. His family donated millions of dollars to charity, the most notable donation of which was to the University of Stanford to create the office of Greek Studies titled "Constantine Mitsotakis." The inauguration took place in the presence of the Mitsotakis family in 2007.
The ART Group, is now operated by his children, Helen and Kyriakos, and his son, Marko Kounalakis.
Kounalakis was also a member of the same Institute with Andreas Papandreou, or the other brother of George Papandreou.
In fact Andreas had organized a conference on Climate Change and Energy Security (i4cense) in late October 2010. The event was co-organized by the Kyriakos Griveas' C&C company, which specializes in public relations.
An arrest warrant was issued in 2014 against Griveas and his wife Anastasia Vatsa (who are extremely good friends of the Papandreou family and specifically Nikos Papandreou). In the past he was somehow connected to the New Democracy party, but we here at HellasFrappe are guessing that this is probably through Dora Bakoyianni since she is more pro-American. Griveas also has great ties with the "Financial Times", and the European Investment Bank. (Click HERE for more)
Note that the i4cence institute was the scandalous kingdom referred to by the president of the Independent Greek party (ANEL), Panos Kammenos, in the infamous case involving the controversial
sale of the CDS. (Click Here to read)
The Discreet Support of Gianna Angelopoulou-Daskalaki
During Tsipras' visit, Gianna Angelopoulou-Daskalakis' circle of friends also made their presence known. (Angelopoulou was apparently discreetly opening the doors for Tsipras' on the other side of the Atlantic.) As such, the president of the Greek-American Institute (AHI), Nick Larigakis also played a significant role in Tsipras's trip to the US. Also, another central figure who was also present at the AHI event was to honor Tsipras was none other than Mr. George Mermelas, the alleged owner of the well known lobbying and public relations institution/company "Greek Dream".
Mr. Mermelas was a close friend to PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos, when he was Minister of Culture (under the Simitis government). During the '90s the present leader of PASOK had handsomely funded Mr. Mermelas through the Ministry of Culture to promote Greece at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Mrs. Gianna Angelopoulou-Daskalaki did the same thing during the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. In fact she continues to fund Mermelas' institution. The institution has even held a special event in the US in her honor.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is, that once upon a time Tsipras rose to lead the Left in Greece which apparently loathes capitalism and this group of elite personalities, but as we can all see they are not only connected to one another, Tsipras is also chummy chummy with them, his MPs vacation and openly socialize with them, and the SYRIZA leader is even being photographed with them.
This little tet-a-tet, claims the news site "Parapolitika" apparently was not received with the same enthusiasm from his fellow party members, in fact it manifested a "mini" mutiny, since both the "Avgi" newspaper (which is SYRIZA's newspaper) as well as the radio station which political backs SYRIZA chose not to cover this encounter at all. In fact it totally ignored the subject altogether and even disputed the photos. All this for good reason of course. Who would want to be connected to two former US Ambassadors who are up to their necks in controversial cases? Also, who would want to be connected to institutions that promote war?
"POWER" is just around the corner
Tsipras' trip to the US may have stirred up problems within his party, and the wider political fora, but abroad he was a completely different person. Today it is more than obvious that if he ever was to serve as premier of Greece, he would certainly be faced with handling extremely difficult situations. This is probably why he made such a dramatic shift in his political -and ideological- strategy. Let's face it, the US doesn't do anyone a favor and not expect a back rub in return and we are guessing that Tsipras will not only rub... he will scrub.
Of course for all this to happen to happen Tsipras has to radically change his own party's strategy, but this cannot happen without repercussions. Many will disagree, and others may even detach themselves from SYRIZA, but to Tsipras this is a small price to pay since he now wants to conquer the country's leadership.
Of course mum is the word -as far as the photo is concerned- from Greece's mainstream media, only "Parapolitika" and "Kourdistoportocali" reported the news, as well as a series of other news sites and blogs.
Folks... Greece is definitely heading down a dark and shady road. It is obvious that the Americans are promoting Tsipras and will probably help him in any way they can. They did the same for George Papandreou and there were rumors in Athens before he assumed office in 2009 that the same team that built his international image is the same team that apparently improved Obama's image.
The mere thought of SYRIZA gaining power is a frightening thought by itself, not because we here at HellasFrappe doubt their capability to govern, or competence, but because of various institutions that if dismantled destroy everything we know and love about Greece. To be more exact, we know what their stance is on our national issues and what type of foreign policy they plan to follow on the issue of FYROM, Thrace, the Aegean and the case of our nation's EEZ and we are not kidding when we say that we are terrified how they will handle these issues. Also... We find it highly suspicious why Panos Kammenos (the leader of the Independent Greeks Party) wants to form a coalition with them to obviously overthrow the government. What connects these two parties? One is far-left and the other is far-right. What is the agenda? Certainly it will slowly begin to unfold... or until Tsipras' political image is ripe and ready for the picking.
Call us nuts Frappers... but we are afraid that our beloved Greece is headed towards a very stormy cloud.
Stay tuned Frappers.
References
- http://www.opednews.com/articles/Demonic-David-Rockefeller-by-Jay-Janson-120816-942.html
- http://www.parapolitika.gr/ArticleDetails/tabid/63/ArticleID/558422/Otan-o-Tsipras-fotogafizontan-me-ton-Miler-kai-ton-Spekchart.aspx
- http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2011/08/greek-watergate-scandal-us-embassy.html
- http://www.antinews.gr/2012/01/22/144001/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Diplomat
- http://www.antinews.gr/2012/01/22/144001/
- http://www.antinews.gr/2008/02/14/1018/
BUSTED - Tsipras' Side By Side With T.Miller & D. Speckhard - What The Greek Media Purposely Ignored
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/02/busted-tsipras-side-by-side-with.html
SPECIAL REPORT - Analyzing Meeting Of Tsipras & Angelopoulou-Daskalaki & Upcoming Clinton Global Conference
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2014/11/special-report-analyzing-meeting-of.html
Alexis Tsipras: What’s his Real Mask?
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/01/alexis-tsipras-whats-his-real-mask.html
Kasidiaris Openly Accuses SYRIZA & Alexis Tsipras Of Supporting The Release Of Terrorists
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/03/kasidiaris-openly-accuses-syriza-alexis.html
BUSTED - Soros Funded Tsipras' Trip To US Says German Mag.
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/02/busted-soros-funded-tsipras-trip-to-us.html
US Tells Tsipras That Turkey Will Attack If Athens Proclaims EEZ
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/02/us-tells-tsipras-that-turkey-will.html
BUSTED - SYRIZA Member Slammed For Attempting To Trigger Total Chaos In Sept.
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.gr/2013/08/busted-syriza-member-slammed-for.html
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